No module named _cffi_backend

Question

I have python2.6 in my Linux rhel-5. I have installed pip and required CFFI packages. When i try to run a sample CFFI program it says :

ffi = FFI()

File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cffi/api.py", line 56, in init

import _cffi_backend as backend

ImportError: No module named _cffi_backend

what could be the posiible error. Did i miss something during install. i have installed pip, wheel, pycparser, pytest, cffi....

Answer 1

You could look at the code L56 in /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cffi/api.py

It needs the _cffi_backend.so in your pythonpath. You could install the python-cffi for it. But not sure whether it is in your RPM repo, especially you are using RHEL-5. Here is an RPM for CENTOS http://cbs.centos.org/koji/rpminfo?rpmID=20613 Hope it helps. I am still searching the source code for building the _cffi_backend.so.

Answer 2

Have the same problem. After many attempts adding import cffi solve the issue.

Make sure you have cffi and cryptography installed.

Answer 3

You have to first remove the following packages:

cryptography
bcrypt
paramiko

Now use the following command to install:

pip -vvv install --upgrade --force-reinstall cffi

Answer 4

For python2.x use following command:

python -m pip install cffi

for python3.x

python3 -m pip install cffi

Answer 5

I recently had the same issue and none of the above solutions worked for me.

Here is what worked.

sudo apt remove python3-cffi
sudo python3 -m pip install cffi

Answer 6

You should do install cffi pip install cffi to get the latest version. I had to restart my application for it to recognize the cffi installation.